I received my PhD from the University of New South Wales with a thesis entitled "Shakespeare as Jukebox Musical". I also hold an MA with Distinction in Shakespeare and Theatre from the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham and separate first-class honours degrees in Theatre Studies and in Opera Studies from Manchester University/ Rose Bruford College. Prior to turning to academia, I had a career as a solicitor, both in-house and in private practice, and hold an LLB(Hons) in Law and French and a postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the University of Edinburgh, as well as a Certificate of Higher Education in Scottish Gaelic language and culture (An Cùrsa Adhartais) from the University of the Highlands and Islands.

My research has focused on theatre, opera, the musical, adaptation and community, and the general framework of European cultural history, with a particular interest in the ways that musical and operatic adaptations of Shakespeare and other playwrights for the spoken stage have been used to create and maintain various forms of local, national and international community, both in the past and today. I am particularly interested in theatregoing and operagoing as inclusive/ exclusive activities, in initiatives by performing arts companies to identify and reduce barriers to participation, and in the potential roles for arts administration to create and maintain different forms of community.

I contribute to teaching and collaborate on research relating to theatre and internationalization in the Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Languages, and Literature. I am the co-editor, with Associate Professor Ulrike Garde, of Theatre and Internationalization: Perspectives from Australia, Germany, and Beyond (Routledge 2021).

From 2020 to 2023 I was a Research Fellow currently working on an Australian Research Council Discovery Project on the economic and cultural value of theatre in Australia, led by Distinguished Professor David Throsby. From 2017 to 2019, I was a Macquarie University Research Fellow in the former Department of International Studies: Languages and Cultures, where I worked on a research project on the Australian director Barrie Kosky, especially in relation to his approaches to community. Barrie Kosky's Transnational Theatres (Springer 2021), which I co-edited with Associate Professor James Phillips, University of New South Wales, is one of the outputs of this project.

My book, Shakespeare as Jukebox Musical, was published with Routledge in September 2018.

I jointly founded the research cluster "Staging Migration in Berlin: Opera, Theatre, Performance, Film" within Macquarie University's Department of International Studies: Languages and Cultures. In conjunction with this research cluster, I organised a twin-themed conference on "Theatre and Internationalisation" and "Barry Kosky: Past, Present, Future" in Sydney in 2019, including a public discussion panel in association with the Goethe-Institut Australia. In 2022, I organised with Ulrike Garde a second international conference  on "Theatre and Internationalisation" with the theme "Negotiating Mobility, Diversity, Belonging". I am also part of the Global Literatures and Cultures research stream, and the Macquarie University hub of the Centre for the History of the Emotions. 

I have contributed lectures, seminars and tutorials to ENGL309 Shakespeare and the Renaissance (undergraduate), ENGL701 Shakespeare and the Renaissance (Masters), GMN361 Berlin: A Window on German History and Culture, GMN363 Germany: An Intercultural Perspective, INTS1000 Language and Communication: Cultural Contexts, INTS104 Societies of Europe, INTS1040 European Cultures and Societies, INTS2020 Citizenship, Borders and Transnationalism, and INTS3040 Global Issues (Capstone).

• European cultural history
• Theatre
• Opera
• Musical theatre and film
• Shakespeare
• Adaptation
• Community
• Arts policy